ice after this he
spoke, smiling all the while. "Is it now indeed?" he asked, raising one
eyebrow; "is it now indeed?" Then he got up, stretched himself noisily,
and lay down as he was on the sofa, to sleep in a moment.

Molly lay with a young maid of hers that night and never had a wink.

IX

THE LAST BIDDING

That golden Duke of Valentinois had a pompous reception from his august
ally at Nona. Amilcare, riding like Castor, at one with his horse, went
out at the head of his court to meet him. The Centaurs lined the way
with a hedge of steel. Hat in hand, the Duke of Nona rode back with his
guest to the garlanded gates. There, a fluttered choir, all virgins and
all white, strewed flowers; from that point to the Piazza Grande one
song came leaping on the heels of another. On the steps of the Duomo
were the clergy in brocade, a mitred bishop half smothered under his
cope in their midst. The two Dukes dismounted, and hand in hand entered
the church; the organ pealed; the choir burst out with the chant, _Ecce,
Rex tuus venit_; and then (seeing Cesare had once been a Cardinal),
_Ecce Sacerdos magnus_. The smoke of incense went rolling to the roof,
_Te Deum_ spired between the rifts; an Archbishop intoned the Mass of
the Holy Ghost. Cesare, in white satin, golden-headed, red-gold in the
beard, cloaked and collared with the Golden Fleece, knelt in the middle
of the dome; beside him the hawk-faced Amilcare, splendid in silver
armour, knelt also--but stiffly; whereas the Borgia (graceful in all
that he did) drooped easily forward on his _prie-dieu,_ like the
Archangel Gabriel who brought the great tidings to Madonna Maria.
Amilcare, at that rate, was like Michael, his more trenchant colleague,
that "bird of God."

The Bishop, who knew perfectly well why the Duke had come to Nona, and
why Nona's Duke wanted him there, preached a sermon which the saving
Italian virtue of urbanity prevented from being either monstrous or
ridiculous. Before the altar the two lords kissed each other. One of
them had tried and the other was about to try murder as a political
expedient; but that was no reason why good manners should not prevail.
Decent ceremony was always a virtue of the race.

Half an hour before dinner Grifone (who had not been to church) stood
before his mistress, who had not been suffered to go. He had a flagon in
his hands, of silver gilt, like the calyx of a great flower whose stem
was sheathed in the clustered win